As I'm sure Richard Branson would agree, social media can be a bit of a monster at times and a rather difficult beast to tame. The scope and speed offered by networks such as Twitter and Facebook, coupled with the ever expanding blogosphere, allows user-generated content to travel faster than a transatlantic flight to New York City. Whether it be a poor customer experience, a brand simply getting it wrong or rogue staff playing a prank - social media has given a voice and a platform to everyone with a keyboard and mouse: and they're certainly not afraid to use it! Here is a collection of some recent high profile examples of the staggering power of social media from the last few months, highlighting the potentially damaging effects it can have on big brands: Read the rest of this entry...

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Historically some of the biggest brand wars of the past have been in the FMCG market between the big consumer players, and Coke and Pepsi have certainly been no exception! Often in the past Coke and Pepsi have beaten each other up by signing up exclusive supplier deals through restaurant and pub chains. A fact I encounter on an all too regular basis. How often have you been in a pub or restaurant and you ask for a Coke only to be met with the response 'is Pepsi okay'? Then you try to be clever on your next pub or resturant outing and ask for a Pepsi, only to be met by the response 'is Coke okay'? Annoying isn't it? All I want is a soft drink - Coke or Pepsi, I don't care! Sorry a slight sore point with me as you may have guessed. This brings me to Coke's most recent one-up-manship campaign in the US, aimed to get one over on Pepsi. Soft drink brands Coke Vault and Mtn Dew (owned by PepsiCo) are fierce competitors in the US and Coke has just launched a clever campaign called...

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This week has been full of big brands getting involved with Social Media. The beginning of the week saw Skittles launch their new website, which total puts the Skittles brand in the hands of social media. Then mid week we saw Visa announce their "More People Go with Visa" Campaign, which has a heavy tie-in with the photo sharing site Flickr. And that brings us to today and Amnesty International's Social Media time bomb campaign. Today, at 1:10pm saw a 'flashmob' style collaborate effort by Amnesty International, to raise awareness of violence on Women in Britain. Amnesty International coordinated the 'flashmob' on their own blog and website, with the aim to raise awareness of the issue across Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. You can read more about the Amnesty campaign by visiting www.oneten.org.uk. Read the rest of this entry...

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Skittles The confectionary brand Skittles, owned by the Mars Corporation and famed for its 'Taste the Rainbow' advertising slogan has taken a giant leap forward online and embraced social media in a big way with the launch of its new and innovative social media campaign. The Skittles Social Media Campaign Skittle's new social media campaign has taken over their entire website, www.skittles.com. The homepage has been replaced by a twitter feed, which is aggregating together all the tweets mentioning the Skittles brand. We couldn't resist experimenting with our very own Propellernet tweet. Read the rest of this entry...

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